The Fifth Dawn

CHAPTER 9

“Slobad!” Glissa cried, sitting bolt upright on the cot. She couldn’t see a thing, and for a moment she thought she was back in the Prison Tree. Then sensation returned in a rush, and the elf girl gasped. Someone was pressing a cool, damp cloth against her forehead, which was why she couldn’t see.

“There, there,” a soft, purring voice whispered in her ear. The accent and dialect were leonin, and probably female, though it was difficult to be sure. Glissa felt a warm feeling of safety wash over her being as the voice began a soothing chant, and the elf girl relaxed a bit.

“Where am I?” she asked.

“The private quarters of the Kha,” a deep, familiar voice rumbled. The chanting leonin lifted the cool cloth from her eyes. Glissa sat on a cot made of soft djeeruk leather inside a cavernous room-no, a tent, she corrected herself when she saw one “wall” wafting in the wind. Four small firetubes lit the room, dimly illuminating three figures that jumped from their seats at a table not far away and dashed to her side. Raksha Golden Cub, wearing fresh bandages like the one around Glissa’s own wound, moved slowest of the trio, or perhaps that was his regal demeanor in action-a king. A king does not arrive anywhere first.

Bruenna wore a look of relief, and Lyese, Glissa was somewhat relieved to see, had a grin a mile wide. Her sister’s attitude seemed to have improved since she last saw her.

“How did I get here?” Glissa asked.

“The connection between siblings allows many forms of magic to work over long dista-” Bruenna began but was cut off by Lyese.

“Glissa!” gasped her sister, and she launched into a rapidfire recount of the events that had brought them all back together. “It was me! We were almost here-we had to walk after a while, Bruenna needed to regain her strength, I guess. When you were in trouble, I heard you, or felt you, or something. It’s hard to explain. Then Bruenna used me finding you to find where to focus her magic, and then she cast this teleportation thing that made all my hair stand up on end, and there you were!”

Lyese sounded very much like the excitable youth Glissa had left behind only weeks ago. She a hand tentatively on Glissa’s shoulder. “Glissa, I’m so glad you’re okay. I’m sorry I blamed you for-I’m just sorry. It wasn’t your fault. None of it is.” Glissa gaped. Lyese hadn’t just had a change of heart, she’d had some kind of magical epiphany.

“Among the Neurok, close family can often feel each other’s strong emotions over long distances,” Bruenna offered. “Perhaps you experienced something similar, Lyese.”

The chanting leonin healer standing nearby had obviously not gotten to her abdominal wound yet. Glissa held her sister’s hand for a few seconds then gently pushed her away.

“Lyese,” Glissa said, clutching her temple in one clawed hand and unable to disguise the irritation she suddenly felt welling up. A brand new headache that had set up shop in her temple didn’t help matters. “You were supposed to come straight here. What were you thinking?”

Lyese looked as if she’d been slapped in the face.

“I can’t believe you. All right, next time, I’ll just let you die,” Lyese said. “Follow your example. Won’t even try to help somebody who’s shouting in my brain.”

Okay, maybe Glissa had misplayed this. She clenched her fists and rose from the cot, feeling her own temper rising as her health returned. “Do you really want to do this now?” Glissa asked, taking a slow step toward her sister, and before her brain thought better of it, added, “I thought we were past this. Just grow up, will you?”

“Way ahead of you,” Lyese said bitterly. She flipped up her eyepatch, revealing an empty red pit. Glissa involuntarily gasped. “Take a good long look, sister. I grew up fast.”

“The healer-maybe she can help,” Glissa said.

“She tried,” Lyese said. “Nothing works. Magic cauterization or something.”

“I spoke out of line. I’m sorry,” Glissa began. “Sorry for everything. Everything that’s happened, and my part in it. If that makes you hate me even more, fine. And I’m grateful you saved me. That was…incredibly brave. I was scared, and I had given up hope. Thank you.”

Lyese eyed Glissa incredulously. “I-you’re welcome,” she said at last.

“It was still dangerous,” Glissa added.

“That didn’t scare me,” Lyese said.

“No, but it should,” Glissa said. “We’re all we’ve got left, Lyese. You and me. And our friends,” she added, indicating the others in the tent. “But please, just promise me something.”

“What?”

“Don’t play games with your life again. Even to save me,” Glissa said.

“I can’t do that, Glissa,” Lyese said. “And I don’t … I don’t hate you.”

“I know,” Glissa said. “And I know you’re probably not going to listen to me. But I had to ask.”

Lyese’s look flashed to concern. “Slobad! What happened to him?”

“Slobad? What has become of our old friend?” Raksha interrupted, his ears pinned against his skull in a display of alarm that surprised Glissa, who had been under the impression the Kha thought of Slobad as little more than an ex-slave with keen mechanical talents. The leonin spun Lyese around by the shoulders none too gently. “Speak, elfling!”

“Easy, your Kha-ness,” Glissa said, placing a hand on the leonin’s chest and shoving him back. Raksha was so surprised he only looked from her hand to his chest and back. “Haven’t you been listening? Don’t jump to conclusions.”

“Strange things are indeed afoot, my Kha,” Bruenna said. “We must all remain more open-minded.”

“You shoved me,” Raksha said.

“She doesn’t know what happened to Slobad,” Glissa said, “So back down.”

“You shoved me,” the Kha repeated.

“Raksha, you can execute me later. When this is all over, you can bring me up in front of Great Dakan himself and have my entrails read for prophecies. But right now, just … lay off my sister. You’re asking the wrong elf.”

Raksha’s ears twitched, but he muttered, “Certainly.”

“Okay. One of the vedalken took Slobad,” Glissa said.

“Took him? Why not just kill him?” Raksha asked.

“Because as it turns out, I’m not the only one Memnarch was after,” Glissa said.

Battered, cut, and bruised, Glissa stalked the floor in the dim candlelight that glittered around the silver tent. She reminded Raksha of a skyhunter. Indeed, she’d taken to the pterons readily enough when he first met the Viridian elf, though she still needed work on landings. Perhaps there would be a place for her at Taj Nar, if what she wanted him to believe was true.

It didn’t take long for Glissa to get through the rest of her tale-how she and Slobad had fared after leaving Taj Nar. Raksha was stunned. An entire world beneath his feet; a madman at the center of it all. The Kha had always considered himself well-traveled. Indeed, the historians assured him he had ranged wider and farther in his conquests and exploration than any Kha for a thousand years. Yet it seemed there was much about Mirrodin that he had never reckoned. He wondered bitterly how much of this truth Glissa now related to him had been kept back by Ushanti over the years. He and his seer would be having a long talk when he returned to Taj Nar.

If he returned to Taj Nar. Glissa’s story of her travails with Memnarch, from the Guardian’s plan to ascend to godhood to the knowledge that nothing on Mirrodin was native to the metallic plane had dashed most of the beliefs Raksha had ever held sacred. For the first time in decades, the Golden Cub began to doubt that the nim were the worst things fate had to throw at him.

They were the only two still awake-the Kha had dispatched a battered but still confident Jethrar to retrieve Yshkar from the front lines and left Shonahn to treat another wave of wounded. Bruenna and Lyese were both asleep on the far side of his spacious quarters. The pair needed the rest, and with a full company of Raksha’s personal guard standing watch outside, they finally felt safe to do so. The Kha could still clearly hear fighting far off on the razor plains.

“Shonahn knows far more than we do on the subject,” Raksha said, “But my people also have legends of a world inside the world. Dakan called it Tav Rakshan.”

“Tav Rakshan?” Glissa asked, arching one slim green eyebrow.

“Rakshan means Hall of the Eternal Sun.”

“So your name is really ‘Eternal Sun Golden Cub?’ “Glissa asked.

“Raksha is a family name. It’s literally ‘Lord of the Eternal Sun Golden Cub,’ if you must know. That is beside the point, however.”

“I wonder what elves would remember if we could?” Glissa thought out loud.

“The generational memory cleansing. You told us of this. It strikes us as rather unwise,” Raksha said. “But these troll-creatures had actual written records?”

“No, I said they used to. Chunth erased them so I-so we, the elves, wouldn’t know the truth,” Glissa said.

“You described this Chunth as an ally who fell bravely in battle,” Raksha protested. “Why did he hide the truth from you?”

“I guess he never thought someone like me would come along,” Glissa said. “By the time Chunth figured out the role Memnarch wanted me to play in his scenario, all he had time to do was save me.”

They sat silently for a moment. Glissa idly twirled a strand of rope of her black-emerald hair at the end of a claw, and seemed to become intimately intrigued with the fine decorative patterns that ringed the lightweight folding table. Raksha smoothed his whiskers with one paw and coughed.

“This lacuna…it is still there? In the Tangle?” Raksha asked and rose from his chair.

“It’s there all right.” Glissa nodded.

“That explains the new sun-”

“Moon.”

“-the new sun,” Raksha continued with mild irritation, “It’s not an omen, or a sign.”

“No,” Glissa said, “It was an eruption. I suppose you could call it part of the natural process of things. The core just couldn’t stay out of balance like that.” Her eyes flashed with anger. “The lacuna, and the new moon-”

“Sun.”

“-the big green ball in the sky are just raw energy, like the core. It’s pure mana, and it doesn’t have a conscience. But that power, in the hands of Memnarch-that could have been the end, right there. That’s your bad omen … or a warning.”

Raksha returned with two mugs of steaming oil that smelled somewhat like well-aged nush and offered one to Glissa. “Thanks,” she said, and took the heavy iron container in both hands, balancing it on her knees.

Raksha remained on his feet as habit took over and he paced the interior of his tent. “Why didn’t the explosion kill this Memnarch as well?”

“I don’t know,” Glissa said. “Protective magic? A big mirror? Dumb luck? My bad luck? How isn’t important right now, but we’ll find out. Still, at the time Slobad and I thought it had killed him. The blast flattened a few square miles of the Tangle. It killed hundreds, maybe thousands of creatures from what I could see. It did this to my hair. And the elves…” She took a deep breath, and her voice became cold. “Yulyn mentioned that dozens of elves disappeared when it happened. No elves have ever lived close to the Radix, but anyone who was in the Tangle when the lacuna blew open must be dead. It’s the only explanation.”

“But also dead are those armies of artifacts,” Raksha said. “You destroyed them. Had we not already witnessed this power of yours firsthand, we would doubt your claim.”

“The inside was crawling with them, though. Some kinds I’d never seen. Some looked like normal animals, but entirely metal. I don’t know how he’s making them, or even if he’s making them, but it looked like he had plenty of company down there. And yes, I do seem to have some kind of ability, but it doesn’t always work. It drains me.”

“What do you think might have happened to the goblin?” Raksha asked.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Glissa said, settling into a soft folding chair in Raksha’s tent. “He’s going to use Slobad to manipulate me. The little guy’s a hostage. And damn it, it’s working. I’m feeling pretty manipulated, but I’m still going to save him, Raksha.”

“We do not doubt it, Glissa,” Raksha replied.

The Kha was glad for this time to speak alone with Glissa. Among all these strange visitors who of late kept turning his well-ordered, albeit violent, world upside down, he trusted her the most. What’s more, he liked her, for an elf. The two of them were bound by a common enemy that had singled out each of them for death-he too had been attacked by Memnarch’s machines the night Glissa’s family was killed, though he’d heretofore thought the vedalkens were behind the plot. Yet for some reason, Memnarch and his vedalken minions had sent no more cursed artifact beasts to attack Taj Nar once the elf girl had departed. Glissa claimed it was her special power, this “spark” that Memnarch desired, that made all the difference.

Raksha didn’t like being attacked by mysterious forces he didn’t understand. But to be attacked, and somehow found not worthy of the fight, made him hate this Memnarch even more.

Glissa drew on the mug of leonin nush and stared into the sparkiron coals burning in a small pit in the center of the tent. The flammable metal, a common enough substance all over Mirrodin, crackled as a bit of oil dripped off the small game animal Raksha was preparing on a spit. The leonin Kha followed Glissa’s eyes as she watched a tiny orange spark flutter up the column of heat, through a vent, and into the night sky. In moments the cinder had joined the thousands upon thousands that filled the heavens.

“Forgive me,” Raksha’s baritone rumbled. As the drink soothed his nerves, he slipped again into a more informal tone. “The last few weeks have been hectic. Violent. I’ve lost too many men, and the leonin need to make a stand soon, before we’re fighting the nim at our front door again. I do not like being cornered. I do not like to lose warriors or friends.”

“Rishan.” Glissa spoke the name that Raksha could still not bring to his lips without breaking his composure. “Sorry, I’d-I’d forgotten. Slobad used to tell me how he thought he’d been jinxed. Thought he was a jinx. But I guess I’m the one who’s really bad luck, huh?”

Raksha turned, wincing as the bandages moved with him and made his chest feel like a pincushion again. “You are not responsible for Rishan’s death,” he whispered, choking slightly on the name of his lost beloved, the seer Ushanti’s daughter. “And despite what you say, I doubt you caused Slobad’s either.” He raised his iron mug. “To the lost. And the missing.”

Glissa lifted her mug in two hands. “The lost. And those who will be found.” They drank, and passed the next half-minute in silence.

The moment shattered with the clamor of scattered skirmishes that still rang in the distance. Jethrar appeared at the entrance to Raksha’s tent. Behind him stood Raksha’s cousin Yshkar, an imposing figure in burnished silver armor plate that like the rest of him was spattered with alternating patterns of green and red blood. The green came from the nim-it was too light to be Viridian. Fortunately.

“My Kha, sir! Reporting as ordered, with Commander-” Jethrar began. Yshkar unceremoniously pushed his way past the young guard and came muzzle-to-muzzle with Raksha.

“What is it, Kashi? I’m needed on the front!” Raksha’s cousin roared.

Raksha’s reaction was immediate and painful for his impertinent cousin. The backhand caught the commander across the right jaw and knocked him back into the hapless Jethrar, who fell backward out of the tent. Yshkar stayed light on his feet and kept his balance, hissing, but the younger leonin turned his ears forward and bowed his head slightly-body language that told Raksha he’d made his point clear to his cousin. Such language from a subordinate was intolerable.

“You, Kyshka, are required where and when your Kha says you are required,” Raksha growled, the menace rising in his voice. “You’re also blood, and that means we trust you, even if we don’t particularly like you. We trust your nature, which is as honorable as ours. You are impulsive. You are headstrong. You are not yet the finest commander in the field, but you will be.”

“My Kha!” Yshkar snarled, and dropped to one knee, head still bowed. “My blood is still hot with battle. Forgive you humble kin. I serve Taj Nar and the Golden Cub. What is it you will of me?”

Raksha grinned. “Don’t overdo it, Kysh.”

Yshkar looked up and noticed Glissa, who watched the scene over her mug with an arched eyebrow. The commander’s fur bristled along the back of his neck, and his inner ears blushed a rusty red. He shoved off one knee and returned to his feet. “All right, we’re even, my Kha. Yet still I stand ready to serve.”

“Good,” Raksha said and indicated Glissa, who set her glass on the floor and made to rise. “No, please, stay where you are. You are a guest in the Kha’s home. Yshkar, meet Glissa of the Tangle. The human is her ally, the younger elf her sister. Glissa brings news that makes what we’re about to tell you even more important than it was when we sent for you.”

“My cousin, always direct and to the point.” Yshkar smirked. Raksha raised a lip and exposed a few teeth, and the smirk disappeared.

“You’re fortunate we value your independent spirit as much as our blood kinship, commander. That as much as anything is why you’ve earned a promotion to general.” Yshkar’s jaw dropped.

“My Kha, the leonin armies have but one general,” Raksha’s cousin said. “You. Are you-?” The meaning of the bandages wrapped around the Kha’s golden torso finally sank in.

“We have been ordered by the royal physician to leave active duty for at least a week. But just because the Kha cannot fight on the field does not mean he is not fighting. We’re going to hew a line in the grass, and establish a permanent field command that will be our den home fortress until we beat these foul things back into their nests. But you will have to be the Kha’s adjunct on the battlefield.”

“My Kha, I am ready to serve,” Yshkar said.

“Excuse me, your Kha,” Glissa said, “but there are a few things you need to know before you begin planning your defenses.”

“Of course,” Raksha said. “Yshkar, we’ll explain all of this later. For now, you’re free to return to the front. Spread word among the field commanders that we will soon be moving out, but do not make it sound like a retreat.” Then, in a casual move that belied the act’s importance, he drew his sword and offered it blade-first to Yshkar. The younger leonin removed his gauntlets and clutched the blade with his naked paws, squeezing until blood welled up. With a snarl, he pulled the sword smoothly from Raksha’s paws, still holding it by the blade, which was now dripping silvery scarlet onto the tent floor. Without wiping either the blade or his own paws clean, Yshkar slid the sword into his own belt and replaced his gauntlets.

“The blood drives us. The blood of the Kha unites us,” Yshkar said. The bloodstained blade would leave no doubt about his cousin’s promotion to general.

Raksha felt naked. But he hid it well.

“So tell me about this fortification,” Yshkar said, flashing a toothy, conspiratorial grin.

“Not yet,” Raksha said, showing his teeth in return. “Remain in contact with the runners, and await word from your Kha.” He cocked his head, thinking, and added, “It will not be long. Fight well, General.”

“Yes, my Kha,” Yshkar nodded, then whirled on one padded foot and strode purposefully outside, casting a glance over his shoulder at Glissa as he slipped through the tent flap.

“Charm runs in the family, I see,” Glissa said.

“He is impertinent, and you are lucky you’re an elf and not one of our subjects.”

“Raksha, I know I promised I wouldn’t return until it was safe to do so. But I didn’t know where else to go.” Glissa bowed her head respectfully. “I really thought I was a goner, but they got me out. And now you’re giving us a chance. Thank you for your help.”

“It is good to speak with you again, Glissa of the Tangle. No more apologies. The past is the past. The only part of that past that concerns us is your story, and what we’re going to do next,” Raksha assured her. “One thing is certain, my forces must soon fall back to a more defensible, permanent position.”

“They’ve really been giving you the sharp end, haven’t they?” Glissa asked. “The Mephidross, I saw it from above. Is it bigger? Mind you, I never knew how big it was in the first place, but-”

“You are observant,” Raksha said. “The Mephidross had consumed our ancestral plains at a pace unheard of since the days of Great Dakan. It hasn’t just gotten bigger-it’s the nim. They’re a disease, spreading the Dross like a plague on this land. They’re not fighting like the nim we know, they’re smarter. Faster. Do you have any idea why that might be?”

Glissa appeared to bristle. “No,” she said, “I don’t.” She gazed upward, remembering. “I thought we’d beaten them back before I left for the interior. But believe me, Golden Cub, we’ve got bigger problems than just the nim.”

“We believe you. Yet they are still a problem,” Raksha said. “Our problem.”

“Look,” Glissa said, getting back to her feet, “I thought the four of-the three of us might get some help here. Maybe the goblins. Or humans. There have got to be some around here-”

“Please,” Raksha laughed. “We get your point. Arguing which threat is greater is fruitless. We must deal with them both. We have been quick of temper these last days, and regret implying in any way that you had something to do with the nim’s resurgence.” He ran a hand through his wiry mane, and growled deep in his throat. “We’ve been on the retreat for weeks. After beating them back only to have them come back so soon, and so strong-this is unprecedented.”

Glissa smiled sympathetically. “Your nerves are shot.”

“Our courage has been tested. Our nerves are steel.” He grinned, fangs glistening in the dim light.

“Right,” Glissa said, and took a pull of the oily not-nush. She held up her mug and examined the bottom. “What’s this stuff made out of, anyway?” she asked.

“Razor grass and thresher oil, we think,” Raksha said with a grimace. “The soldiers brew it when they’re away from Taj Nar. It isn’t practical to travel with a lot of heavy fluids.”

“Not bad,” Glissa said, and coughed. “Don’t know if I want to make a habit of it.” She shifted her position forward and rested the mug on the woven metal fibers of the tent floor. “Raksha, I know my last visit didn’t end … well.”

“That is the past, Viridian. You must let the matter rest, as we have. Rishan is with the gods, and her mother has fallen out of our favor. Perhaps you did not understand the significance of our friendship. The friendship of the leonin Kha is the friendship of the leonin people. Rishan’s death is not on your hands, nor is it on mine. Nor,” Raksha added with conviction, “is Slobad’s capture your fault.”

“I let him out of my sight. I should never have done that. He’s so-he was so-is so-small …”

“We have known that goblin much longer than you have, Glissa. He is no weakling, and his size is no indication of his ability. Over the years, I have counted him lost several times, and he has always returned to Taj Nar, looking for more work, eager to share tales of his latest misadventure.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means,” Raksha growled through a toothy grin, “that you shouldn’t count him out just yet. From what you have told me, that lacuna is very deep. And Slobad, though he is many things, is a survivor above all.” He stood and bowed his head to the elf girl. “Now please. Sleep. You shall have the royal cot,” Raksha said, “and we shall curl up on the rug and sleep in front of the fire.”

“Really?” Glissa said, and Raksha could tell she was forming a mental image of the Kha rolled into a ball and purring like a domesticated tanglecat.

Raksha winked. “No, not really. Spare bedroll. Just wanted to see if you were paying attention. Good night, Glissa of the Tangle. Tomorrow, we will make plans. You shall help us, and we shall help you. But for now, sleep.”